Development log

I set out to create an animated tile ad and decided it would grab a bit more attention as a five-frame GIF.

Pastore Financial Group (PFG) wants to feature their free webinars tailored for physicians on the Vermont Medical Society‘s website. I built the following 350 X 250 pixel animation consisting of 5 frames that displayed for 3 seconds each… a 15-second cycle.

Sponsored by the Vermont Medical Society

I tried to send the GIF file to the client for review, embedded in an email, but it got lost in transit. So, I posted it on PFG’s Facebook Business Page the same way I would upload a photo or a video and a surprise discovery was revealed. Facebook converted the GIF, which was set to loop 3 times and then rest, into a 15-second, auto-playing, video that now looped endlessly. The looping video really catches the eye on an otherwise static Facebook page.

If you upload them to a personal profile, they are also converted to a looping video. Facebook only allows GIFs to remain in their native format if they are linked from another location like Giphy.

I have been an educational design consultant for more than a decade, initially working for Marquette University designing their first distance learning applications for the Colleges of Nursing and of Education. I continue to explore and research the ongoing development of new media and the interactive learning interface it provides. I am a filmmaker and social media campaign developer.

There are lots of free, template-driven site builders like Web.com, Wix and Weebly that are quite tempting to the non-technical person. Among the many reasons to avoid them or escape them, we highly recommend migrating to self-hosting WordPress software because it is an open-sourced content management system with thousands of plugins, themes, undergoing continuous evolution and improvement by a global community. And did I mention it’s free…

In approximately 3 hours we rebuilt the entire site, adding all sorts of valuable new social plugins, improved the SEO and added a free shopping cart that also runs within Facebook. The content was already there. It just needed to be migrated to a new platform.

Copying text from the existing Website required disabling the javascript that Photobiz wraps their developer content in to disable cut ‘n paste. I suppose they are trying to safeguard their client’s original copy but anyone with a reasonable skill level knows how to work around this. Personally, I do not like it when external scripts start affecting my working environment… so here’s how you can take back control.

The NoScript Firefox extension turns out to be a very worthwhile tool and provides all sorts of extra protection for Mozilla-based browsers. It’s a free, open source Add-on that allows you to control JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plugins to be executed at your choice. It’s fun to take back control as you faithfully surf the Web …and from this point on, we were free to copy whatever text we wanted.

Our intention was to avoid any downtime while completely rebuild the new site in the background, working with content from the existing site. Our DesignWiseHosting.com cPanel servers permit us to set up your account and work on an IP-based URL, in this case the Internet Protocol IP address, followed by a slash, a tilde and the account name: 173.254.76.126/~thehebp8.

Once we got it all finished, we simply changed the nameserver information from the Photobiz account to our own DesignWise Hosting server and it popped right into existence with virtually no down time. But, all of the posts, pages, images and their permalinks were then based on the IP address and not on site’s actual domain name.

Here’s a step-by-step outline of how to change a WordPress site’s domain name or URL:

Before you do anything, make an entire site backup and a SQL database backup. Export them and keep the copies offsite.

Perform a search and replace but only do it on the wp_posts table! In this case I was searching for: “173.254.76.126/~thehebp8” Despite the fact that the sacred Codex says, “Never, ever, change the contents of the GUID column, under any circumstances,” the IP-based URL was there too, so I checked the box to Replace GUIDs.

Then I went to the Administration > Settings > General panel and changed the WordPress Address (URL): change the address to the new location of your main WordPress core files.
In the box for Site Address (URL): change the address to the new location, which should match the WordPress (your public site) address.

Checking the Settings > Permalinks panel and make sure the Permalink structure now displays the domain name instead of the IP address

Then I edited the hidden .htaccess file pasting in the new snippet of permalinks code.

Last, I checked the settings in the Appearance > Menus to update the links to the home page that still had the old IP address embedded in it.

The final result is a clean and quite functional WordPress installation with unlimited possibilities, one that far surpasses the very restrictive Photobiz template system.

The very traits that make WordPress a universal platform for publishers and developers also make it somewhat vulnerable to hackers, so we provided Lisa with a bulletproof security setup that not only protects her against hackers but saves or delivers automatic hourly, daily or weekly database backups.

With the continual shift to handheld devices, her Website is now responsive and completely mobile-friendly.

I have been an educational design consultant for more than a decade, initially working for Marquette University designing their first distance learning applications for the Colleges of Nursing and of Education. I continue to explore and research the ongoing development of new media and the interactive learning interface it provides. I am a filmmaker and social media campaign developer.

Webopedia says BYOD is a “phrase that has become widely adopted to refer to employees who bring their own computing devices – such as smartphones, laptops and PDAs – to the workplace for use and connectivity on the corporate network” …and the devices largely being chosen are built by Apple.

While the acronym began as a workplace metaphor, it has rapidly come to reflect the entire shifting game board of content management and delivery. It seems like only yesterday – aka a long time ago in Webspeak – that having a beautiful Flash animated HTML Website was the cat’s meow. Now it’s the kiss of death!

Remember, it was Nemesis who first attracted Narcissus to gaze into a pool where he fell in love with his own reflection and eventually died there. Your Website now must be much more than a pretty image. It needs to be alive and respond to who and whatever knocks in this BYOD world. In the early days it was browser-compatibility that challenged the Webmaster. Now, we are all content creators and the challenge rests in achieving device compatibility.

Let today’s release of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Gear smartwatch be your wake up call. How will your Website look on its display screen, which measures 1.63 inches diagonally? With smartphones and tablets already becoming ubiquitous, electronics companies are building advanced computing technology into everyday objects such as wristwatches and glasses. Does your Web content shift in response?

It didn’t take a crystal ball to see this coming. On September 10, 2013, DesignWise Studios celebrates the 4th anniversary of our migration to using WordPress as a fundamental Web design and development platform. That’s because it’s a mobile-friendly BYOD content management system in a box. It’s responsive and continuously evolves with the ever-changing times. And better yet, it’s open source software, free of coded corporate secrets with a price tag to match.

I have been an educational design consultant for more than a decade, initially working for Marquette University designing their first distance learning applications for the Colleges of Nursing and of Education. I continue to explore and research the ongoing development of new media and the interactive learning interface it provides. I am a filmmaker and social media campaign developer.

The very coolest thing about migrating to WordPress as a fundamental Web design and development platform is the timely social element. My very favorite word is synergy – when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When I work within the WordPress community there are simply thousands of smart people working alongside me. I am free to concentrate on empowering my clients and developing a custom theme, while I can tap a vast well of collective resources to add individual site-specific features as plugins.

Joost de Valk is a Dutch WordPress developer and an online marketer, blogging at Yaost.com. As I work here on the rollout of my own site I intend to document the process, pointing out some of the best solutions I discover, test and apply. Joost’s blog is a continuously valuable resource for tips, tools and plugins that he develops. His Sociable plugin is considered by many people to be the finest way to add social media buttons to your posts. The buttons include all of the top social bookmarking and commenting sites as well as the capacity to e-mail, create a pdf or print – so this one plugin covers all sorts of ground.

I am starting this project with a plain “vanilla” theme entitled Frugal by Eric Hamm. He includes a lot of encouragement and documentation with the theme in hopes that you will try modifying it and learn more about the art of coding. I just added in my own logo and will continue to grow this project right before your eyes.

I have been an educational design consultant for more than a decade, initially working for Marquette University designing their first distance learning applications for the Colleges of Nursing and of Education. I continue to explore and research the ongoing development of new media and the interactive learning interface it provides. I am a filmmaker and social media campaign developer.